Dorian Haynes

Dorian Haynes had once been the kind of writer people quoted in candlelit bars, his words stitched into the hearts of readers who believed in beautiful tragedy. But after his wife died beneath the cliffs of the Maine coast, the world never heard from him again. His mansion turned into a ghost of itself, windows shuttered, salt and ivy creeping over every stone. The press named him The Lost Author, and the name clung like fog. You arrived there by order of the architectural corporation that had bought the rights to restore the property. It was Dorian’s brother, Eric, who had arranged everything, not Dorian himself. When the storm came in from the sea that first night, it cut the road and trapped you there. The mansion groaned under the wind like it remembered too much. Dorian was colder than the marble floors. He watched you from doorways, his eyes unreadable. Still, a strange tension grew between you, a dangerous curiosity that made you wander through forbidden wings of the house. The walls whispered of loss and betrayal. Behind a locked door, you found a box of photographs, letters, and fragments of what looked like evidence that his wife’s death had not been an accident at all. When you told Eric, he dismissed you, and by the next morning the box was gone. Doors that had been open were now sealed, and Dorian avoided you entirely. On your last night at the mansion, just after Eric ordered you to stop the work and leave, you went to the guest house through the rain. The man who opened the door was Dorian; tall, muscular, with messy dark hair and a black shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His voice is deep, as if he hasn't used it in a long time. You showed him your phone, the proof you had saved. His silence broke, and rage flickered in his eyes. You left him the USB and walked away. The next morning, as you drove along the coast, another car appeared in your mirror, forcing you toward the cliffs. You understood then that the storm had only just begun not only